"Born Ilford,East London, 22 August 1955; soprano, alto and baritone saxophones, voice.

After a short period in Manchester, deciding that the possibilit of a career in librarianship was not for him, Alan Wilkinson moved to Leeds in 1975 to undertake a Fine Arts degree, concentrating on painting. Shortly after completing his degree he began playing the alto saxophone and joined the group Crow with Mathew Coe (aka Xero Slingsby), Richard Ward, and long-time associate, drummer Paul Hession. Following a short tour of Belgium and Holland, he decided to quit painting and concentrate on the saxophone. In 1979 he formed the group Art, Bart & Fargo with Hession and tenor sax player Pete Malham,experimenting with playing a wide range of other instruments, mainly percussion, and mixing composition with pure improvisation. After playing in England, Belgium and Germany the trio disbanded after three years.

In 1982 Wilkinson attended the Improvised Music Summer School in South Wales and this introduced him to musicians such as Peter Brötzmann, Barry Guy, Fred Van Hove, Keith Tippett, Phil Wachsmann and Radu Malfatti among others. This led directly to gigs on the London improvised music scene, a trio with Paul Hession and Japanese pianist Akemi Kuniyoshi, and many gigs with drummer Steve Hubback in a wide variety of combinations. In 1983, in duo with Hession, he appeared at the 10th annual Free Music festival in Antwerp, Belgium and at the Holland Art Initiative in Eindhoven. The same year he was among the original organisers of the Termite Club in Leeds, specialising in improvised and experimental music and performing arts. A trio with Steve Noble and Tony Moore existed from 1985 to 1988, having toured in Britain, Belgium, Holland and Denmark and in 1985 Wilkinson also joined the large improvising ensemble The Ubiquity Orchestra. From 1987 to 1989 Wilkinson's activities included a widely toured quartet with Willi Kellers, Christoph Winckel and Alex Maguire (through to 1992); a tour of England and Wales with Phil Durrant, Thebe Lipere, Will Evans, Louis Moholo and Keith Tippett; gigs with Mick Beck's large group Feet Packets; and a tour of England with Alex Maguire's nine-piece Cat o'Nine Tails.

Alan Wilkinson has been invited to play in Derek Bailey's Company on a number of occasions, firstly in 1987 on a tour of Switzerland and Italy with Steve Noble, Barre Phillips and Ernst Reijseger; again in 1988 at the ICA in London in a Company Week which included Dennis Palmer, LaDonna Smith, Gregg Bendian and Milo Fine; and in 1993 he helped organise and participated in Company Week at the Place Theatre with, among others, Don Byron, Robyn Schulkowski, Ikue Mori and Phil Minton. Other associations have included a stint with the John Law Quartet; playing with the London group Ya Basta; Real Time, with artist Gina Southgate and drummer Mark Sanders joined occasionally by Maggie Nicols or Susanna Ferrar. He has also played solo gigs since 1991.

Alan Wilkinson is probably best known as a member of the take no prisoners Hession/ Wilkinson/Fell trio formed with the addition of Simon Fell to the longstanding duo in 1989. Though perhaps correctly typified as a high energy power trio - starting loud and then opening the throttles - and the recorded evidence goes some way to support this proposition, there are not only areas of respite in the playing but also an interest in fitting the group into new situations. For example, in 1996 a short UK tour took place in June with US guitarist Joe Morris (with a CD forthcoming on Incus); and in November the trio appeared in an incendiary, ear-numbing, exhausting and hugely enjoyable interchange with Derek Bailey at the annual Termite Festival in Leeds: a gig that the organiser's attempted unsuccessfully and on several occasions to end prematurely (this being Sunday night in a pub in the UK), finally resorting to flashing the room lights and talking loudly; Derek Bailey, having been sat head down in concentration for the uninterrupted 40 minutes of the second piece then looking up blinking, seemingly surprised at the near panic. The following night, Wilkinson and Fell undertook a four date tour of the UK with a quartet completed by Peter Brötzmann and Willi Kellers, reprising a similar tour by the same musicians in 1994."

"Matthew Mottel, is an internationally recognized musician and artist, performing most notably with Talibam! for the past seven years. His visage should be familiar to anyone who's been going to shows in NYC in the past ten years. He's been hanging around NYC clubs since he was like 16, and dropping electric mind bombs with his synthesizer in those clubs nearly as long with folks like Karole Armitage, Rhys Chatham, Awesome Color, Akron/Family, Jeffrey Lewis, Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear), Kenny Wollesen, Chris Corsano, Ras Moshe, Cooper-Moore, Sean Meehan, and many others."

"Kevin Shea is valued as being a vital and original artist in the contemporary music scene. Shea's originality is manifested not only by his personal approach to his instrument, but also throughout his constant search for new musical horizons unifying all the bands he has been involved in despite the parameters set for musicians by genre definition, or by historical icons.

The plurality of rigorous artistic aspirations and creative engagement that distinguish the discography of Kevin Shea are not the product of chance or merely taking advantage of opportunities -- but the result of labor, strong convictions, and a strong conceptual support -- a deliberate search for transitional territories away from the dogmas of boring and unnecessary conventions.

Shea's artistic interests are rooted in reevaluating what a band/music, musician/performer, artist and audience can and should be. Splitting the difference between passion and song, Shea plays multi-dimensional utopian sound in which opposing musical forces integrate to form a new sustainable recipe for sound and social implication. Remaining devoted to his belief that the application of sonic diversity is paramount to the appreciation of human diversity, Shea's ultimate goal has been to wed disparate ideologies through proficiency, controversy, inquiry, and compassion -- an approach perpetuating audiences, listeners, and sometimes fellow band members, to face, question, define, and attempt to defend their own level of tolerance and compassion head-on, no-holds-barred.

Through this carefully planned direct method in the round, Shea's sonic investigations emphatically traverse the mobius strip highway of refurbished canticles, perpetually climaxing between Sadean semelparity and Platonic resurrection. At the heart of Shea's dialectical core, unabashed artifacts of rhythmic iconoclasm conjoin with anthemic melody gestures and modern memory loss to create a vital force that gives us bittersweet contemplation and empathy.

As a youth, Shea moved throughout the States many times, transforming any of his formal expectations into a joyous foundation of constant flux. He learned that intuition and customs had to be constantly re-evaluated and negotiated rather than held as sacred. This process of questioning is central to Shea's music. To him, sound is a result of a broader process rather than formulas tied to notions of predictable emotional response. Shea sees sound and music, not as a prize, but a simple aspect of banal daily life.

Kevin Shea has over 25 years of experience as a professional drummer, composer and performer. He has recorded on over 120 albums in a mish-mash of contexts and has performed in over 40 countries. His training started in public elementary school and continued steadily through his college years at Berklee College of Music."